Eurostar to the rescue of European flight chaos

Payback time has come. In December 2009, adverse snow conditions had caused a dramatic situation for Eurostar, where several trains lost power and got stuck inside the channel tunnel. Although there were no serious injuries, thousands of passengers got stranded during the critical Christmas season, consumers, media and governments got angry at Eurostar crisis management, and all other Paris-London routes via air, ferry or bus/car quickly got overloaded.

With the recent Icelandic volcano eruption causing chaos in Northern European skies, and ripple effects across all of Europe and beyond, the Eurostar turned out to be the only haven for tens of thousands of British travellers stuck on the continent – and European or even American travellers stuck in the UK.

Not only that, but Eurostar has been able to setup many additional trains on Monday April 19th and Tuesday April 20th for an extra capacity of 80,000 pax. Moreover, the additional seats are offered at a flat rate (96 EUR or 89 GBP one way), which is not the lowest but not even the highest possible rate.

All extra trains can be easily booked online on Eurostar.com, however note:

• if a regular or additional train is not showing up in the search results, it’s because it’s full! No point in calling the call center.
• if you don’t have a ticket, no point in showing up at the station at the last minute – your chances are very thin. Take it easy, enjoy Paris (or London). There are worst places to get stuck in.